In This Episode
Trump named in Epstein files, ICE expands GPS ankle monitoring for immigrants, L.A. prosecutor struggles to land protest-related indictments, and a long-overlooked Black tech pioneer finally gets his due.
News
ICE moves to shackle some 180,000 immigrants with GPS ankle monitors
Trump’s top federal prosecutor in L.A. struggles to secure indictments in protest cases
Another Hidden Figure: The Black Man Behind the Computer
Follow @PodSaveThePeople on Instagram.
TRANSCRIPT
[AD BREAK]
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, this is DeRay, and welcome to Pod Save the People. On this episode, it’s me, Myles, and Sharhonda, back to talk about the news with regard to race, justice, and equity that you might have missed in the past week. And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram at @PodSaveThePeople. Here we go. [music break]
[AD BREAK]
DeRay Mckesson: I have no more ways to say that the world is just moving too quick, but here we are. This is DeRay at @deray on Twitter.
Myles E. Johnson: This is Myles at @pharaohrapture on Instagram and at @MoonPulpit on Twitter.
Sharhonda Bossier: And I’m Sharhonda Bossier at @BossierSha on Instagram and at @BossierS on Spill.
DeRay Mckesson: Well, this week had a lot of things going on. George Santos, let me just start there. Now, George Santos was a character, definitely committed fraud, scammer, scammer, scamber. Got sentenced to seven years, and it just made me think of like, it was just a reminder of how arbitrary sentences are. You’re like, where did seven come from? You’re, like, you know, and there should be a consequence for him. I’m just, I don’t I don’t really know what prisons, like I’m not even like a George Santos fan, and I’m sort of like seven years in prison just feels sort of, I don’t know, ridiculous. And he should never be able to run for office or do any of those things again. And even his tweet about it was just a caricature of everything. I don’t know, but I forgot all about George Santos. I forgot that we were still prosecuting him.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I will say that that tweet uh actually might make me a fan. I love a good scammer. I’m so sorry. I do. And I know that he was in Congress and like, that’s a problem. And you know, to your point, DeRay, he should never be able to run for elected office again. Um. In one of my other group chats, we have a bet going to see how long he actually serves in prison. Right now, the low end is 18 months, the high end is three years. And so we’ll see what that seven years actually nets out to be.
Myles E. Johnson: Thank you for that. Thank you for that law breakdown, because that makes more sense to me. That makes a lot more sense me. Um. Do y’all remember Joanne the Scammer?
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes!
Myles E. Johnson: And stuff.
DeRay Mckesson: The legend, the legend.
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. And I think about like, Anna Delvey And I’ll be honest with you, I have a thick disgust with American culture right now. And the idea that those kind of, um, the Joanne the scammer, the Anna Delvey, those kind of caricatures of like, scamming have found their ways into politics and have done real violences and have done real frauds and have really, um, because, you know, George Santos totally mutated himself as an enemy of trans people, of Black people, in order to get money, and sure, he can sit down with Ziwe and it be seen as funny and he can put these letters out, but he did a real violence and I always think that that is what I’m noticing is American culture. So yes, Trump is a clown, but the clown has a machine gun.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: So that’s how I feel about George Santos, so I’m like, as long as he could be in jail, keep, ten, lock him up. Sorry Angela. [laughter]
DeRay Mckesson: Oh God Myles. Sorry Angela.
Sharhonda Bossier: So much for the abolitionist, anti-carceral–
DeRay Mckesson: Right, what happened?
Sharhonda Bossier: –position of this pod.
Myles E. Johnson: That starts with negroes. Abolition with negroes first.
DeRay Mckesson: Oh, he said, throw George Santos away.
Sharhonda Bossier: Oh my gosh.
DeRay Mckesson: What a rise and fall though, because George, George had a run. It was a good run.
Sharhonda Bossier: Incredible run. It was, yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: And was actually in Congress. That’s the wild part of it.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes, yes.
DeRay Mckesson: Now, I guess I’m gonna volley this over to you all because I don’t watch South Park. I saw a clip of this spoof of Donald Trump. Um. And I am sure that if the network had actually seen this, they probably would have yanked it off the air before it ever aired. And I think Trump replied, didn’t he? Didn’t Trump say something in response to it?
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, the White House issued a statement, called it a fourth rate show. Said it hasn’t been relevant in 20 years. Yeah
Myles E. Johnson: Fourth rate is funny.
DeRay Mckesson: Can y’all talk about what it is though? You all know the South Park thing better than I do.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, so I was a big South Park fan in high school. Uh. And anyway, so you know South Park is known for its parodies of like popular culture and politics. This particular segment or skit pokes fun at Paramount for its decision to settle, and CBS, right? And everyone else who has sort of settled with the Trump administration. And, you know, the townspeople think they’ve gotten a good deal because it’s like, okay, we can make some cuts and like meet his demands for money. And then they’re like, ooh, but it’s not just money, right? We also have to like now do the pro Trump messaging, which as you know is something he’s also been able to secure in some of his other settlements, deals, etc. And so, you k now South Park is like, how the hell are we South Park going to do pro Trump messaging? Got it. And so there’s this like, you know, there’s this video, it cuts from being animated to being sort of live action, right, of Trump in the desert. They’re using all of this language um that’s really about Jesus. And if you have seen any of the like, he gets us, you guys remember those like a couple years ago from the Super Bowl ads, like he gets us Jesus ads. So they pull from that imagery, pull from that typeface, etc. And then they hit Trump where, you know, they think he will feel it most. Which is a discussion about him having a tiny penis uh and having a sort of tiny animated penis as part of this. However you feel about that, that’s the route that they chose to go. Uh. I thought it was very keeping in the style of South Park. So if like, that’s your jam, that’s your jam. Um. I think it’s also one way to say like, come at us, bro. You know, they’ve also, the creators of South Park just secured a massive deal, right? And so I think they probably feel a little bit insulated from a lot of the financial pressures that other creators and creatives might um feel right now. Um. And I thought it was one way to leverage their platform in a way that was true to their voice to kind of say F off to the Trump administration. So that’s the South Park thing. It’s getting a lot of shares obviously and a lot of views.
Myles E. Johnson: Of course, like South Park was so big in my childhood, because I’m very young, so that was my childhood. [laugh] But um but no, it was so big, but it always was kind of, um like kind of like white boy humor, just growing up in rural suburban Georgia. Um. And of course, like since then I’ve, I don’t see it like that anymore. Many a people who love South Park who are not white boys, but that’s how I always took it. But um it’s it’s twofold, right? One part is, I’m American. So there is something extremely cathartic about watching an animated series totally take down and challenge the power of somebody who is so cruel and do it in vulgar ways, do it in ways that are mean and kind of um and gross. That’s like kind of that American thing. The other part of me, the second part of the fold, is oh, I’m Black and I’m trans, and I know the limits of cruelty against cruelty. So I know, the limits of talking about somebody’s body part or um in saying something, you know, I kind of like deconstructed that when I was integrating trans men in my life and integrating so many different people into my life who were saying, you know tiny dick jokes only work if you think that the only people who exist are cis heterosexual people. Um. They become they become a reaffirming um act of a transphobic reality for everybody else as well. And then even when I was thinking about the scene with him, with the devil, and all that being so queer coded, and how that just reestablishes this kind of domination culture that says queerness is evil. So it was this kind contradictory moment of me experiencing a lot of catharsis by viewing it, but also understanding that, oh yeah, white cruelty is not going to eliminate white cruelty.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah I, the point of like the sort of the queer codedness, right, I think is also, you know, them saying y’all are so homophobic, yet y’all are y’all are gay for Trump, you know feels like the way that people express their undying devotion to him is as if they are like literally in love with him. And I understand to your point, Myles, some of the like, I don’t know, the paradox of like both getting that and like and wanting to see that and then also understanding the limits of it and what it means for how far we still have to go. Um. You know, as someone who also sometimes dates men, always a mistake, I shouldn’t say that, but anyway, someone who sometimes dates men um and and straight men in particular, right? Like for a lot of them still in 2025, being called gay is still one of the worst things, right, that could ever happen to them. And so I don’t love that, um but I also think that there is an element of trying to meet Trump and his supporters where they are. You know?
Myles E. Johnson: I love what you just said too, because there is so much homoeroticism in homophobia.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: Even when I think about what it happens in like my high school years or middle school years. That homoeroticism and homophobia they’re not separate, you know. I forget the scholar who said it, but I’m sure somebody will tell me. But um it’s disgust and desire do not live um on opposite ends. They live right underneath each other with each other.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: So there’s something there too, to me.
DeRay Mckesson: And then I saw Candace Owens back in the news. Candace, why? Why are we even talking with Candace Owens? Why is the president of France suing Candace Owens for defamation? And why is Candace Owen’s doubling down on saying that the first lady of France is a is a is a man? What are we doing? What is the world coming to? I thought it was a joke that the president of France is suing Candace Owens. Like what?
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. I don’t understand why they feel the need to litigate this. You know what I’m saying? Except for connected to the point we were just making, there’s a little bit of transphobia here, right? Which is the like, I will prove to you because like, who gives a [bleep]? You know what I mean? Um. Except for they must feel like one of the worst things ever would be to be a trans woman. You know what I mean, but I was surprised because I didn’t think that Candace Owens packed that kind of cultural punch. Um. That they even felt the need to dignify it by acknowledging it, responding and–
Myles E. Johnson: It’s so, like the news is so strange because it’s always two layers, right? The first layer is, of course, Candace Owens chasing somebody because she thinks that that person is trans, is disgusting and wrong. And you want to defend that person and you want to say no no woman deserves this, which is still true. And then you’ve researched who she’s critiquing and you’re like, you met your husband at how old? Like, did you know that she was a high school teacher when she met her husband? She was 39 and he was 15?
Sharhonda Bossier: Ooh, I did not. No.
Myles E. Johnson: I can’t remember if I said this on the podcast or if I just said this in the group chat, but it kind of always puts us in a situation of kind of reaffirming that disgusting liberal thing, because it’s like, how do you defend somebody who has so uh who has done things that are so kind of like, weird and heinous? And if you do defend that person because in this way they’re being dominated, it looks like you’re affirming all their choices in life and it’s such a weird sticky thing that I’m like, you know what? My Black ass, I’m just gonna say have hands off and just say that’s your karma. Maybe Candace is on your ass for for other reasons, but I’m not gonna touch it because it feels untouchable because there’s something so gross about that relationship to begin with to me.
Sharhonda Bossier: I had zero clue that that is how they met.
Myles E. Johnson: Me either, y’all put it in this, y’all I had to do my research, I was like, what’s going on? Before I holler at her.
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come.
[AD BREAK]
DeRay Mckesson: But then there’s all this other stuff also happening in the culture that is just like what’s going on? So Myles lead us through the culture stuff because I feel like I’ve missed this week.
Myles E. Johnson: Oh Jesus, my managers, plural, feel like I missed this week too, because I think I was doing, I have my iPad and my laptop and I was doing more iPad and then laptop-ing on some of these days. So the first thing that has had my algorithm in disarray is Laverne Cox got up. Now first of all, because I love a compliment sandwich, she looked sickening, ova, beautiful, great Bob Mugler collection in the in the back. And I thought she was gonna tell us something profound, maybe funny, but instead she tells us that four years ago, she dated a white MAGA NYPD cop who is 26 years old. Um. If you do not know, because Laverne Cox dresses like she’s 20. Laverne Cox is currently, I believe, 51 or 52. So at that time she was like 50, 48, excuse me. So at the time she was like 48 and right now currently she’s in her she’s in her early 50s. So this is um not a young Pollyanna who just was trying to see if love could just be love. It totally stormed the internet. It totally–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: People had so many things to say, and of course, I just want to know, what do, before I give my opinion, what do y’all think? What do you think? How do you feel?
DeRay Mckesson: I was talking about this with one of my friends and they were like, DeRay, that video was not for us. Laverne was courting a different audience and they were not Black. And I think that I’ve never seen somebody um misread the room so dramatically twice. So like the first video was just like, nobody would have been, people would have taken a white partner as like, that’s just Hollywood, it is what it is, like whatever they would have, but it was like the fawning over the blue eyes da da da. It was the MAGA, it was the like three years of it all. You’re like, the MAGA people don’t even think you should exist. It’s not even like a passive sort of, I don’t know it’s uh. The MAGA people are like, we want the word trans deleted. You know, it’s like, this is intense. So like that was intense. And then she posted the video of the like, the justification for why people don’t date Black people. And you’re like Laverne and and and and if it was just, you know, the basic not, you know, more Black women are in college than men are, I don’t know. Something that was like just a little more cut and dry, but it’s like one section of that video is literally called the talented [?] and you’re like, well, what?
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
DeRay Mckesson: And it’s, like, you’re, like okay, well this sort of went in a whole different direction to sort of provide cover for not dating Black people. You’re like this just got really out of control. And what I think is hard for Laverne, and I’ll be, you now, we haven’t talked about this. I think that the Black people are like, okay, no. The Black people who are like normally allies are like well this is too weird to defend. I saw a ton of trans Black people also be like either I’m off the train or I’m just gonna like sit this one out because we generally like you, Laverne, and we’re just gonna consider this like a moment that you lost your mind. So we’re just gonna, and then it’s like the Black people who were like, hmm, and like wanted a reason to be transphobic, are like [?], they’re like, whew, got my moment.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: T-slur, T-slur, T-slur, yeah.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, and you know, and the white people aren’t gonna really rock with a Black person that Black people don’t rock with in this way.
Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly.
DeRay Mckesson: So like, I don’t know where Laverne goes from this. And I don’t know how you clean this one up. I don’t know. This feels like an epic mistake in what happens when people live in Hollywood for too long. And they think that that is the world. And you’re like, Oh, baby, the world is, who are your friends?
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: And DeRay, sorry, Sharhonda, but–
Sharhonda Bossier: No.
Myles E. Johnson: To DeRay’s point so I don’t forget, to that point, Laverne is in New York City, right, most of the time. That’s where she lives, so it shows you that Hollywood is a state of mind, not a location.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes, yes. Well, if you buy tickets to her show, she’ll answer all of your questions.
DeRay Mckesson: Somebody was like, cancel the show, baby.
Myles E. Johnson: I see what you did Sharhonda.
DeRay Mckesson: Cancel the show.
Myles E. Johnson: There was a capitalist critique in that, okay.
Sharhonda Bossier: I think the last thing that I will add, because I think both of you sort of summed it up pretty well, is that it was also so clear to me um how much this was about her feeling chosen by someone that she thinks other people would want to choose, right? So she’s like, this was a white man with blonde hair and blue eyes, which for a lot of people is like, those are desirable characteristics, right? That’s who was supposed to be the most attractive in our culture. And she’s like, this person who was supposed to be the most attractive in our culture wanted me. And I think that there is something in there about like the race and desirability part that is shining through so clearly for me. Where I’m like, you are worthy and you are beautiful and people are attracted to you and you don’t need. It just feels like when she was a young girl, she fell in love with some white, blonde hair, blue eyed boy on her TV screen. And that was what she was chasing and she was gonna get it at any cost. And I think we’re seeing that the cost is probably gonna be pretty high to her, unfortunately.
Myles E. Johnson: Overall Mother [?] Love, like, that’s what it’s giving. Um. I don’t want to dogpile on Laverne Cox because I do really, really like her, but I would not be me if I didn’t say some of my thoughts, because it’s interesting. I fell in love with Laverne because she was doing this tour with Bell Hooks. And she talks like very clearly and lucidly around um the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. So there’s maybe an expectation that I had had of her that she kind of failed. But then also, I was just thinking about how sometimes I’ll agitate some of my white gay friends. Who am I kidding? My one white gay friend, I’ll be agitating my one white, gay friend about love is love and how B.S. that is, because overall, I think all these kind of like neoliberal slogans just have their limits. But I will always tell him, I would be like, well, you know, love can’t really be love until freedom is freedom. So all these different things that you want your love to transcend can’t really happen if you’re on a land that is still festering hate and festering domination. And it was weird to see somebody who you think is so learned in Black feminism um not understand that I get and you’re into men. Um, subjective reality, you might be experiencing romance and all types of good sex and all types of things, but the political global reality is that this is a man who would rather have you dead. And he does that through his political actions and those things have to be married with each other. And it’s really difficult to make coherent your moral, ethical, political and public ambition values all be coherent, but you know. At 48, I would hope that you were closer. I would hold that you were closer. It’s not even like a big homophobic rapper. It’s just him.
DeRay Mckesson: The other thing I think about Laverne that is really hard and that this is sort of about the archetype of Laverne, less Laverne the person, is that you know the way Hollywood hurts you is quiet. So it’ll be just no invites. The people with power won’t issue statements about Laverne. They won’t comment on Instagram about Laverne, She just will be nowhere all of a sudden. It won’t be a red carpet. It won’t be an awards ceremony. It won’t be an interview. They will be like, this is just too much to have to deal with on our platforms, and that is how careers end, because, you know, Laverne is, is frankly like, in some ways, like a legacy celebrity. Like the show where, I didn’t, I never watched Orange Is The New Black, but that is sort of when Laverne becomes sort of a big deal. And that show, you know.
Myles E. Johnson: Time Magazine.
DeRay Mckesson: I don’t know what time magazine?
Myles E. Johnson: Her Time Magazine cover.
DeRay Mckesson: Oh I missed that time. I know her from Orange is the New Black, like, from that moment of celebrity, but like then, you know, COVID happened and it feels like we went through 80 years. So she’s famous because of that one. I mean, she’s had a lot of other things, but that is what made her like singularly famous. And it’s like, you, you know you need to ride, like you are still here because of the good graces of people’s memory. That is sort of and, you know, the world’s moving real quick and we all saw this. I don’t know. This makes me nervous for Laverne. I don’t know if the city winery show is going to be the– [laughter]
Myles E. Johnson: Ooh, it just, like, it eats your mind. Like to, that what you just said earlier about Hollywood was so good. Um, but yeah, I think it just has to eat your mind. [music break]
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come.
[AD BREAK]
Myles E. Johnson: So kind of, for lack of better words, transitioning into um a more solemn subject, Malcolm-Jamal Warner passed away and I saw so many people on the internet totally just kind of open their hearts and talk about their experiences with him. I follow some like professionals in the entertainment industry who talk their personal experiences, but also just people talking about who he was as far as in his acting roles and his choices. And it was so interesting to look at his interviews and see that he was so deliberate about picking roles and doing things inside of the black community that were um that will be received well and that were and that had integrity and dignity and how sometimes that didn’t um always pay the best. And sometimes that meant there were some sacrifices. And you know. Life comes at you really, really fast, you know death even faster. And we just are losing our legends, you know? I think like when you think about it in the context of Frankie Beverly and Maze, in the context of Quincy Jones and Nikki Giovanni, this is the, I think Black people through culture are mourning and grieving a certain type of star and a certain type of celebrity who is willing to not collude with minstrelsy in order to perpetuate their fame, and I think that grief, as well as him as a person, but that grief is thick for us too. How do y’all feel?
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I think it was a tough loss, um and, you know, whenever I tell the story of like, why I decided to go to college, Phylicia Rashad’s portrayal of Clair Huxtable was like, in my head, right? Like I was like she’s a lawyer, I’m going to be a lawyer. Right? Like that was, and so the Cosby show, um and I understand the dark cloud, you know, around it now, given all that we know about Bill Cosby, but really was a depiction of Blackness, Black life, et cetera. And I know lots of us have class critiques, et cetera. But what I heard from Black men was that even if they couldn’t relate to the family unit in which Theo was being raised, they could relate to Theo as a kid who struggled with dyslexia, as a child who was a little awkward, who was trying to figure out dating. Like it still felt like an authentic portrayal and depiction of Black boyhood to them, right? Um. I’ll say the first thing that came to mind, unfortunately, when I saw the headline and before some of the additional details had been shared, was I had worried that it had been something like some health thing that he hadn’t tended to, et cetera, because there have been so many Black men in my circle and extended circles that were dying in their early to mid fifties because they had avoided like the necessary health checkups or they, you know, weren’t being honest about how depressed they were, et cetera, etc, and so it made me check on the Black men in my life. Um. Again, just to be like, you good over there?
DeRay Mckesson: He’s so young. You’re like, ooh, you were–
Sharhonda Bossier: I know 54.
DeRay Mckesson: Young, you know, and just so sad, like that, uh, a drowning accident on vacation. You just got married, you got married late in your life to you.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: Had a kid late in your like, and thankfully they were able to rescue the kid. And, you know I don’t know if you saw, but they said they performed CPR on him for 45 minutes.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: And he just like didn’t make it. And you’re like whew, this is very sad. And you know how the currents, you know, they say he got caught in a current. That’s like the scary thing about the water is that–
Sharhonda Bossier: It’s unpredictable.
DeRay Mckesson: It’s so unpredictable. And you like, think you get it. I remember I went whitewater rafting at Bowdoin. Baby, I fell off that raft and was like, oh, this is nothing. Shout out to Brian Wedge–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: –who saved my life. But I was like this life jacket don’t even matter. It don’t matter.
Sharhonda Bossier: It doesn’t.
DeRay Mckesson: Like it the current was whipping me around. I was like.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: Yep
DeRay Mckesson: That was my first taste of like the water is stronger than anything I saw on TV.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
DeRay Mckesson: And this life jacket is just keeping me like upright for a moment.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: But it is not gonna save my life.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes exactly.
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah I have to disagree with you, DeRay. I never get in water and think I know what’s going on. [laughter] I always picture myself in the Lord’s hands when I’m in the water. I was like, oh, surrender. And then we also had some other folks pass away, interesting culturally. Hulk Hogan passed away. From my feed I have a very African-American feed. Black American feed. It is not a kind place to him right now. So if you’re a fan, there’s you probably are a little offended. And then we also have Ozzy Osbourne, who um passed away as well, who my fifth grade teacher put me on to Ozzy Osbourne, Crazy Train. And um I remember I got to paint my nails black. And anywho, Ozzy Osbourne just has a very significant place in my fifth great life. Um. And he was kind of integrating himself back into the world through the Osborne show and stuff. So how do y’all feel about this moment of certain, these kind of like certain like white masculine icons passing away? Because I think that still affects us too. I think that effects not just Black people, but American culture when these type of um icons of white masculinity pass as well. How do yall feel?
Sharhonda Bossier: I saw even the white people I know not being kind to Hulk Hogan. They taught me the phrase, rest in piss this week. So you know, I was like, oh, look at me learning things in white people’s comment sections. Um. It doesn’t seem like many people were fans of Hogan’s, um especially I think toward the end of his life when he was a pretty vocal Trump supporter, um married a woman young enough to be his daughter. I think he just did a lot of things that people were like, all right, we’re off that train. Ozzy, I don’t know anything about Ozzy’s music. I actually first encountered Ozzy Osbourne uh when they were doing the reality show, The Osbournes. It was like one of the first reality shows that I watched um and you know remember the kids and remember Sharon, et cetera. Um. And so that’s really my only point of reference for Ozzy Osbourne.
Myles E. Johnson: Not the bat?
Sharhonda Bossier: I know he bit the head off the bat and all that other stuff, right? Cause that’s like stuff that came up in conversation, but like culturally to me, he’s a, he’s a reality TV star. Um, and not a musician.
DeRay Mckesson: Same Sharhonda.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, exactly. So I’m like, you know, he, he seen–
DeRay Mckesson: And the kids, we learned the kids. We learned him. We learned Sharon. We learned–
Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly.
DeRay Mckesson: –[?] a whole little family. They were the first British family that I ever knew.
Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly.
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah.
Sharhonda Bossier: And didn’t Sharon get in trouble for saying something racist when she was on TV or something like that?
Myles E. Johnson: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: But after way after the show, that was more recently.
Sharhonda Bossier: Oh way after the show. Okay, okay.
DeRay Mckesson: Well, um, and Hulk Hogan was racist and those, you know, and if you remember [laughter] Hulk Hogan’s racism, you know I’m sorry, I just had to I feel like I didn’t get to say that and I needed to say [?]– [indistinct banter]
Sharhonda Bossier: And you feel like you need to say it on the record. Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: Breaking news in case y’all didn’t hear it.
Sharhonda Bossier: We got to litigate this.
DeRay Mckesson: Hulk Hogan was a racist. But remember that Hulk Hogan’s racism was the end of Gawker.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: Gawker released that audio of Hulk Hogan’s tape where he uses the N-word and says all these other racist things and that led to the Gawker lawsuits that then led to the end of Gawker. You know somebody was like they should just turn on Gawker’s website one last time to do like a rest in peace Hulk Hogan and I was like you know that would be very on brand for Gawker.
Sharhonda Bossier: It would be, somebody fund that. My news this week is about the attempt of the interim U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California to pin felony charges on protesters, folks who were protesting in LA last month. So Bilal Essayli, who goes by Bill, that’s a whole other story. Currently serves as the US attorney for the central district of California. To give you all a sense of the size of the district, it’s headquartered here in Los Angeles. It includes seven counties and nearly 20 million residents. So it’s the largest federal judicial district outside of Washington, DC. He’s serving in an interim capacity because his appointment was made under federal law that allows for the attorney general, in this case, Pam Bondi, to fill vacancies without Senate confirmation for up to 120 days. He was appointed in early April. And so his interim term will wrap up at the end of August. And so he’s got to prove himself in order to get Senate confirmation. If he’s not confirmed by the Senate by then, then a panel of federal judges will have the opportunity to appoint him or someone else to the position. He doesn’t currently have the support of either of California’s senators. And it’s not clear just yet if like this judicial bench will appoint him. And so the other thing to know is that the Trump administration has tried to have two other interim US attorneys, um, appointed by judicial panels and both in New Jersey and in New York, those panels declined to do that. So just know that I think the administration is a little bit nervous. This is important context as we start to talk about what he has done here in Los Angeles. So he has filed felony charges against at least 38 people for alleged misconduct that took place during last month’s protests or near the site of immigration raids. Many of those charges though have been dismissed or reduced to misdemeanor. So he has secured only seven indictments with three other cases resolved via plea deal. Five of those cases have been dismissed with prejudice and so they could be filed again. And again, many of the prosecutors in his office are struggling to get past the grand jury phase. And as you know, grand juries only need to find probable cause that a crime has been committed in order to move forward. And that is a much lower standard than beyond a reasonable doubt, which is required for a criminal conviction. The prosecutors in his office on the condition of anonymity are also speaking out and they’re expressing concerns over the allegations that federal agents are making. So for instance, a US border patrol officer claimed that a man was screaming in his face that he was going to shoot him. He claims that they chased the man, that they got stopped, et cetera. And that man’s lawyer said, I found video that shows that no such chase ever took place. There was another woman who was detained. She’s four foot eleven. ICE agents detain her, she thinks she’s being abducted, she holds up her work bag to shield herself and the ICE agents claim that she struck one of them in the head and in the chest. And when her lawyer said, okay, then run me the receipts, show me the body cam footage and the eyewitness testimony that you all are relying on magically the prosecutor dismissed the case. And so one of the prosecutors has also said that there are, quote, “a lot of hotheaded customs and border protection officers who are kind of arresting first and asking questions later.” We’re finding that there’s not probable cause to support it. So there are three reasons I wanted to bring this story to the pod. One is I think it’s illustrative of what these people will do in order to curry favor with the current Republican leadership in hopes of like securing permanent appointments. Two, you know the lies that these law enforcement officers will tell about protesters, and it made me think of being in Baton Rouge with you, DeRay, right, when you were arrested. And then lastly, you know I don’t know how we talk to people about not taking plea deals if they don’t have to take plea deals. Right. Like have a lawyer fight the case and make law enforcement prove their case. But yeah, those are the three things that I wanted to bring to the pod for discussion. Sorry for all the context, but I think it’s important for people to understand. Who’s in this role, how they get there permanently, what they’re willing to do to try and demonstrate that they’re gonna go hard in service of this administration’s priorities.
DeRay Mckesson: Shout out to juries, ask for a jury trial, make these people fight tooth and nail. That’s it, boom, that’s my whole story on this. The system only works because everybody pleads guilty or they take–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: –plea deals, like that is how it works. If y’all went to trial, you’d have a much better shot at a lot of things than, and you know, there’s some other people we know that just went to trial and got off on things that you were like, I think you probably did that, but convincing 12 strangers is a little harder than you think, especially in this moment where people–
Sharhonda Bossier: Right.
DeRay Mckesson: –realize the Trump people are crazy. Like, they got, you know. The briefs and stuff that Trump’s lawyers are filing in court don’t make sense. So try convincing 12 people to get it unanimously um is the thing. So go to jury duty, y’all. My friend in DC just went to jury duty. He was the only Black person in the jury selection pool. He was like, this is bad. Yes, that is bad, y’all need to go to Jury Duty. Go to Jury Duty.
Myles E. Johnson: Go to jury duty and be square. Don’t, don’t. I always put on my good, um, conservative Candace Owens drag if I get called so hopefully I can get picked because I know if they see me in my and how I look in the wild, they’re gonna be like, not you. Not you, girl. Not, you, girls.
DeRay Mckesson: My Candace Owens drag.
Myles E. Johnson: Right. Yes. So I gotta look all buttoned up and be like mm-hmm-hmm. Jail’s for people. So, and then you gotta flip it on ’em.
Sharhonda Bossier: Well, you clearly want to send somebody to jail. You were shouting about locking up George Santos just at the top of this call.
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I want revenge. Like, I don’t, like, I’m tired. Like I don’t want nobody who’s stomping around and and being cruel and and not get their kind of cultural revenge and, and you know, jail’s the quickest way to say it, but you know that’s not what’s in my heart. Um. Yeah, I kind of just echo what DeRay said on this one because it, it gave, the story gave me a lot of hope because it shows that. Um, everybody is not just submitting to the, the wave of like fascism that we’re, that we’re seeing, you know? Just as much as it’s disturbing that there’s so many people inside of the system who are advancing it, it’s also, um, really, I don’t know if warming is the right word, but we’ll, we’ll say it warmed me to know that there are so many um, that there are people who are saying no, because I, you know what? And I also think that people are realizing that this type of, um weaponization of the court system can happen to everybody. And I think sometimes we just say that, but I think that now we’re seeing that. I think, that is how come Diddy didn’t get the um get the sentences that that he wanted. I think so many people, because of our entertainment, because of just how the court systems are, realize that tomorrow it could be them and they’re way less um quick to punish their fellow citizens.
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come.
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DeRay Mckesson: Well, my news is about good old ICE, which continues to be a terror and just a money-making operation too. So Alligator Alcatraz, or whatever it’s called, all the ICE officers, these people are making buku bank, the company that built Alligator Alcatrez, the private facilities that they have, is they care. I mean, they do care about deporting people because that is the project of white supremacy to just have white people. But they also care about making money. And this is a money making operation. So this uh, what I’m talking about is that ICE is going to shackle about 180,000 immigrants with GPS ankle monitors. Now, let me tell you, nobody is monitoring 180,000 people newly. It’s not happening. There is no system to track that many people. We have no way, like, it’s just, that’s not happening. But what is happening is that the government will pay for more than 180,0000 ankle monitors and some company will make a ton of money with the monitors. What I also didn’t know is that they have wrist worn tracking devices, which are the exception for pregnant women. Obviously I knew about ankle monitors, but wrist monitors feels just so crazy that I had to read the sentence a couple of times to be like, what? I don’t know, but yeah, somebody’s making a lot of money. Um, and that is, that’s the thing. So as you can imagine, uh, the group, Geo group, which will get a lot of this, they donated over $1.5 million to Trump’s, um, presidential committee and the campaign and inaugural committee, and they will get the contract to do this and it just is nuts. So I wanted to bring it cause it just makes me super sad. And as you can imagine, GeoGroup is ICE’s largest contractor, and they those people over there are getting rich off of the ICE business.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, it just made me think of like a modern scarlet letter, you know um, just like the way that people will be branded when we see them wearing these ankle or wrist monitors. Um. And you know when I first saw the story, I was like, let me just scroll down to the part where I feel figure out who’s profiting from this because I knew that was like a huge motivator here. And then the last thing I’ll say is, you know, you aren’t. I know we don’t care about this, but like these things are heavy, you know what I mean? And you’re gonna put these heavy things on people’s bodies that they’re gonna have to wear for months and months at a time that are, to your point, not gonna be effective, you know all of that other stuff. And it’s like, we just we just don’t care about people’s wellness, their wellbeing, their bodies, any of that. Um. And I know that’s like a random thing to care about, but I care about it. You know?
Myles E. Johnson: That’s not random at all, because it’s the kind of the day-to-day reminders of the domination that you’re under that kind of eat away at the spirit and the psyche. So, like, the extra weight. You know, I can’t even go to, um, go in the shower or go to bed with, like necklaces and stuff on. So, I could only think about if you have something that was, um that is attached to your body because the state says they need to be able to, um, track you. I can only imagine–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: –how uncomfortable it was. DeRay I did know about wrist monitors because um–.
DeRay Mckesson: You did?
Myles E. Johnson: Shout out to my, I’ll keep her unnamed homegirl in Chicago who was pregnant when she got she got–
DeRay Mckesson: Wow.
Myles E. Johnson: She was pregnant and her ankles were swollen, so they were like, we got something for you, girl. Don’t you worry. We will keep your ass in your apartment. Um, so I was familiar with that. And I just think, you know, again, like these, like, little stories, there’s really not a whole lot to say that it just doesn’t seem, that doesn’t sound like something that we’ve already said before. But I think that in this moment, to look at how the lowest class is being treated lets us know the psyche of how we are all considered. So we are all considered cattle. We are all consider potential slaves. We are all considered um potential convicts who this can happen to. All that the government needs is an excuse to do it. So I think that is the reason to um care and to think about this is because this is practice for the next group and who knows who the next group is. Is the next group trans people? Is it Black, is it other um you konw Black Americans? Like who knows who the next group is, and we have to think, look at it now and and and and sit with it and not just sit with it but show compassion and I don’t know maybe something’s in my spirit a little Nat Turner in my spirit but I’m like you know how do we we ain’t got nobody to to to hack the let me not talk about it let me not talk about it. Lemme–
Sharhonda Bossier: Well we invoked the spirit of Anonymous last week, so.
Myles E. Johnson: Okay, yeah! Ancestor Nat Turner and Anonymous, join. Join, which puts us in my news, which is all about, hold on, we might’ve got something with Dr. Dean. So my news is about Dr. Dean, and I think that we might need to call him up to make a little liberation plan. So if you do not know who Dr. Mark Dean is I’m gonna tell you. This article is from blackengineer.com. I’m also saying it because these are good sites that I like that have been good respites for me. So I’m like, I’m like Black enterprise, Black engineer. I know I critique neoliberalism, but it is a warm blanket too. [laughing] So um from part of this article, it says, Dr. Dean holds three of the original nine patents on the computer that all PCs are based upon. And Dr. Mark Dean is a PhD from Stanford University. He’s in the National Hall of Inventors. He has more than 30 patents pending. He’s a vice president with IBM. And he’s also the architect of the modern day personal computer. I did not know the modern-day personal computer via IBM was built by a Black man. And I think about things like the cotton gin. And I think about things um I talked about the fair um I talked about Fairchild in the video games um last year, and how some of the first video games were um designed by a Black man. Um. And I actually have a collection of his ’80s video games. I don’t have the console, but just the video games and stuff. And the reason why some of these people are really important to me, it kind of connects to my conversation that I had a couple of weeks ago with Saul Williams, is I think it’s so important to use these stories to interject Black people inside of futurism, inside of a world where maybe nature and technology are one and Black people are safe inside of it. I think that we do a lot of fear-mongering and we do a lot of um and rightful warning about AI and the internet and et cetera, I don’t think that we always do the best modeling of how um technology can be just like nature and live with us and live with amongst us. And I think that these kinds of stories are helpful to be like, no, this is not something that Steve Jobs did or Bill Gates only did or whoever just did. This is something that is a part of our kind of African and obviously Black American legacy and this involves us, you know, and and this is a part of this world of computers, this world of technology, and even this world, of what I really want to call Afrofuturism, should not exclude us. We should always be looking for excuses to interject us inside of those narratives because that helps the imagination be able to see us there too.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I was really appreciative of of of this article. You know, shared it with my 14-year-old niece.
Myles E. Johnson: Oh, good.
Sharhonda Bossier: And um just, you know, I think we talked about this also last week when we talked Zora Neale Hurston, right? And the preservation of her home um is just the resisting of the erasure um of us, our stories and our contributions. So shout out to a July Black History Month, you know?
Myles E. Johnson: Okay.
DeRay Mckesson: I also think about what would the world be like if Mark Dean had just had a couple hundred thousand dollars just sitting around in legacy wealth to be able to do his own thing and not have to go work at IBM.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: And shout out to Mark Dean for being in history. And you know, Black History Month, let’s round up some new people for February [?]. [laughter]
Myles E. Johnson: Don’t talk about Rosa.
DeRay Mckesson: Shout out to Rosa. We can keep the old people, but we got to add some new people to the carousel for Black History Month. So maybe that’ll be Pod Save the People’s contribution. We’ll do 30, no, February, they ain’t even got 30 days in it. So we’ll do 28 days. That’s what we going to do, y’all. We going put out some people that y’all don’t know for Black history month, because this Black History month.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
DeRay Mckesson: In 2026 is a hundred years of Black History Month.
Sharhonda Bossier: Ooh.
Myles E. Johnson: Wow.
Sharhonda Bossier: Wow.
DeRay Mckesson: So it’s time to celebrate. Um.
Sharhonda Bossier: All right.
DeRay Mckesson: So yeah, let’s do that.
Myles E. Johnson: I did not know that.
Sharhonda Bossier: Me either.
DeRay Mckesson: It was 50 years of Negro History Week, 50 years of Black History Month, but it is next year is the hundredth of the celebrations. [music break] Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week, and don’t forget to follow us at Pod Save The People and Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. And if you enjoyed this episode of Pod Save the People, consider dropping us a review on your favorite podcast app, and we will see you next week. Pod Save the People is a production of Crooked Media. It’s produced by AJ Moultrié and mixed by Charlotte Landes. Executive produced by me and special thanks to our weekly contributors, Myles E. Johnson and Sharhonda Bossier. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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